Traditionally, retailers have relied upon conventional checkouts, in which a customer has items individually scanned and bagged by an employee. Because conventional checkouts require several employees individually assisting customers, retailers have recently introduced self-checkout systems. Self-checkout systems are typically overseen by a lesser number of employees than would be required for a traditional checkout system. For example, a self-checkout system may have several kiosks that allow customers to physically scan their own items, much like a store employee would do, and then pay for those items via a user interface. In doing so, self-checkout systems allow a single store employee to oversee a number of these kiosks at the same time, and only render assistance when needed.
However, customers may take advantage of self-checkout systems to circumvent security measures. For instance, people may pretend to scan an item, place the unscanned item in a bagging are, and leave the store without paying for the item. This type of activity may be particularly difficult for store employees to detect when the user scans less expensive items, and pretends to scan costlier ones. To counter theft, many self-checkout kiosks use scales that sense the weight of scanned items and verify whether an item, upon being scanned, is actually placed in a bagging area. This solution, however, requires specialized equipment to be installed as part of each self-checkout kiosk, increasing its cost and reducing the advantage of saving labor costs in the first place. Furthermore, self-checkout systems still require a dedicated store employee to oversee the self-checkout area, which reduces, but does not completely eliminate, labor costs. As a result, self-checkout systems provide some advantages over traditional checkouts, but still introduce several drawbacks.